Cries of Outrage, Tremors of Hope: Shifting the Lens of "Fighting Back"

As a Nature-based Solutions (NbS) consultant, I've been responding lately to individuals and organizations who are outraged at the full-frontal attack on the Environmental Protection Agency, threats to environmental and eco-justice, active assaults on human health and dignity, access and inclusion, freedom of thought and speech, educational and religious freedom, and other basic rights outlined in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

If you are an individual or representative of one of these groups who have been reaching out in utter outrage and despair, please know I'm outraged with you. I hear that you'd like to fight back as a response to the bullying, lies, fraud, and the sadistic ideologies that are driving the madness. Full stop. I'd like to shift the languaging and the lens of "fighting back" against bullies.

Denouncing bullying is one thing. Fighting back to dominate the bullies and teach them a lesson is another.

I've learned along the way that allowing intransigent ignorance based on fear to frame the debate is futile. We must take the initiative to shift the paradigmatic lens for dialogue. "Big Stick" warfare is for responding to playground bullies on their own terms, and it reinforces the paradigm of Domination and "winning."

We must shift the approach. As kids, we learned to deal with bullies sometimes by "fight" or "flight." Then, some of us discovered a tertium quid, a third way - that once we got the bullies into the classroom, club meeting, practice, or student council debate, we launched a new relationship. As adults, we learn that when we take bullies on in meeting rooms, courtrooms, town halls, community forums, public debates, peaceful protests, voter booths, and face-to-face dialogue, we can unmask the bravado. We can reframe the debate. It becomes about dignity, access and protection for all, common decency, compassion, and mutual respect.

Dichotomous rhetoric spawns the ouroboros. Resistance languaging that caters to dualistic thinking is the same approach espoused in counter-point. This is to frame the current crisis as a least-common-denominator dispute of "us" vs. "them," i.e., "good" vs. "evil." Such dichotomies rarely move the needle. The issues are much more nuanced and complex. They require further learning, information exchange, mutual support and protection. They require dialogue.

There's another response to the bullying I want to call out and emulate, i.e., the call to form and stay engaged in Community.

Community engagement does many good things, not the least of which is the process of Collaboration or mycelial networking - gathering and exchanging information, ideas, resources, strength, mutual protection, and nourishment. It's the way some of the oldest, largest, most resilient organisms in the biosphere have survived. I'm talking about the Trees. Mycorrhizal (mycelial) networks are information conduits that are vast, complex, and form the basis for the symbiotic relationships of plants and fungi beneath the surface. Without them, everything in the biosphere perishes. We can learn much from them if we pay attention.

My recommendation to all those individuals and environmental groups reaching out to me who are outraged, locked in despair, or feel like you're screaming into the abyss, stay connected. Mobilize from your base. Don't try to go it alone or allow your outrage at one comment or despicable act to frame the entirety of the morass. Broaden your horizons. Articulate what you do, what you value, your ethical framework, what you stand for, and who you embrace. Connect with others in the root system. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I'm sorry if you wanted me to attack directly the offensive rhetoric, but bullies bent on domination are not worthy of my time, energy, or attention on their terms. Encounters with bullies, rapists, terrorists, abusers, tyrants and torturers has taught us to reframe the dominance paradigm altogether.

We're taking dominion ideology on in the larger arena as well as our networks and SOIs. We're reframing it as Collaboration and networking, what Darwin intended in framing his research on species adaptation and survival. Contrary to what we've gleaned from popular interpretations, "survival of the fittest" refers to those species most adept at networking by developing the capacity to collaborate and to adapt well among the whole, not those who dominate every other species. It means Collaboration is what gives us the best chance for survival. For those comfortable with the intersection of natural science and faith/spirituality to explore the perennial ethical flaws of "dominion theology," I recommend reading Elizabeth Johnson, Ask the Beasts, Darwin and the God of Love. For the ethics of collaboration in transformative research, or an ethical humanist (and somewhat humorous) approach, there are other options to explore the ethics of Collaboration.

Shifting the paradigm from one of "Domination" to one of "Collaboration" is why I love my own work assisting those navigating significant change. Changing the way we think helps us clarify and change the way we act. I get to help people shift the lenses that guide their world-views and actions. And that can have a huge impact without the need for retribution.

So many who embrace the current regime are operating under the assumption that Domination = Winning = Happiness/Success. What a patriarchal, hierarchical nightmare for anyone not allowed "on top." What a tragedy. Set up by the privileged few for the privileged few, who consider themselves in absolute power over others.

A paradigm that might be workable for the rest of us has to do with a wider "We." Happiness = Love = Community/Pack=  Belonging/Mutuality/Trust = Companionship = Intimacy/Laughter/Joy = Creativity = Learning/Growth. Service-leaders serve all and galvanize the whole, the wider "We." Tyrants serve only themselves. If we continue to promote the paradigm of egalitarianism, inclusion, and respect, we shift the lens for not only our circles, but for all.

My circles of friends and collaborators are strength for me, of course, and I engage with literally thousands of members of environmental orgs I network with because that's my big issue, the Wider "We.' When I listen carefully to my dialogue partners, I feel their outrage, but I also feel their tremors of hope. We are very strong together, catalyzing energy and growth. If you find one or two of your own big "Yeses," plug in. Listen. Feel the energy. It might lift your spirit and help you raise your voice for something broader than "us" vs. "them." We can't take all this on alone. We might invoke the hackneyed paradigm - we're in ideological trench warfare. And it's heavy shelling. It's time to switch up the terms of engagement and shift the paradigmatic lens. I like to think we're all in the compost bin, roiling, connecting, transforming. New life is emerging. How will we cultivate it?

That's all I've got for now. Of course, if you do choose the playground melee, I'll be with you in other arenas, along with many other collaborators who refuse to frame the issue as "domination" vs. "submission." We're having our coffee/tea conversations, raising a din in the back rooms and boardrooms, at the kitchen table and in the grocery, in the churches and on the streets. We're raising kids to embrace Diversity, Collaboration and Compassion. We're staying in touch.

Despite. The. Madness.

Shift the lens. Feel the hope. Connect.